dejection

From Old French dejection, from Latin dejectio (“a casting down”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈdʒɛkʃən/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /dəˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/
• Rhymes: -ɛkʃən

dejection (countable and uncountable, plural dejections)

1. A state of melancholy or depression; low spirits, the blues.

   Synonyms: despondency, downheartedness, crestfallenness; see also Thesaurus:sadness

2. The act of humbling or abasing oneself.

   Synonyms: abasement, humiliation, submission

   • 1659, Bishop John Pearson, An Exposition of the Creed:

     Adoration implies submission and dejection, so that while we worship we cast down ourselves; there must be therefore some great eminence in the object worshipped, or else we should dishonor our own nature in the worship of it.

3. A low condition; weakness; inability.

   Synonyms: dearth, want; see also Thesaurus:lack

   • 1732, John Arbuthnot, Practical Rules of Diet in the Various Constitutions and Diseases of Human Bodies:

     Meat remaining in the stomach undigested, dejection of appetite, wind coming upwards, are signs of a phlegmatick constitution.

4. (medicine, archaic) Defecation or feces.

   Synonyms: excrement, bowel movement; see also Thesaurus:defecation, Thesaurus:feces

   • 1855, Austin Flint, Clinical Reports on Continued Fever Based on Analyses of One Hundred and Sixty-Four Cases‎, Linday & Blakiston, First Clinical Report on Continued Fever, Based on an Analysis of Forty-Two Cases, page 39:

     No dejection since his entrance, nor has he passed urine.

   • 1861, James Jackson, Another Letter to a Young Physician‎, Applewood Books, published 2010, →ISBN, Note I. John Lowell, page 103:

     His dejections were frequent, loose, changing in character from hour to hour, made up of undigested food, of mucus and watery fluid, varying in color, mostly green, and never healthy in consistence, color, or odor.

   • 1921, Charles Signmund Raue, Diseases of Children - Homeopathic Treatment‎, 2nd edition, B. Jain Publishers, published 2000, →ISBN, Chapter IX Diseases of the Intestines, pages 205–206:

     Chorera infantum may begin as an attack of acute indigestion, or, what is more frequently the case, suddenly, with severe vomiting and copious dejections, high fever and rapid prostration.